FUR SEALS INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19144, 9 October 1925, Page 9

FUR SEALS INDUSTRY.

TRADE IN SOUTHERN SEAS. INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATIONS. [from our own correspondent.] SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 9. Steps are being taken., by means of an international agreement among the maritime nations, for the restoration commercially of the fur seals inhabiting the South Pacific and Antarctic Oceans, according to Dr. Barton Warren Evermann, director of the Museum of the California Academy of Sciences, who states that he believes the Pacific alone is capable of yielding man an annual harvest of £200,000,000. Owing to improper fishery conditions, fur seals, sea otters, whales and other sea animals have, Dr. Evmnann says, in certain zones been reduced to commercial extinction. "In the North Pacific are found three species of fur seal, one belonging to Japan, one to Russia and one to United States. The Alaskan or American herd is the most important. When the United States came into possession of this herd in 1867, there were probably 3,000,000 seals in it. The Government gave to the Alaska Commercial Company exclusive right to kill the seals. One male to every 40 or 50 females is sufficient for breeding purposes, and, as the young are equally divided between the sexes, it is evident that for every 40 males born 39 are not needed for breeding purposes and may, therefore, be killed for their skins. Under the lease of the Alaska Commercial Company, it was possible to kill about 100,000 of these surplus males every year without diminishing the size of the herd; so long as this selective killing was done, the herd remained normal in size. But in the early eighties certain persons from Victoria, British Columbia and elsewhere discovered that they could go out in boats, intercept the seals in their return migration and kill enough to make a very profitable business. They could not, however, select the males for killing; the majority of those taken were females, which meant serious loss of the breeding stock As a result the herd decreased rapidly, so that by 1912 there were only al>out 127,000 left. " Subjects of Great Britain and Japan were those chiefly engaged in killing seals on the high seas," says Dr. Evermann. "Hie United Staies appealed to both countries to enter into a treaty with the United States by which pelagic sealing should be made unlawful. The United States offered 15 per cent, of all the seals killed by its subjects to each of the two nations. The offer was accepted, the treaty signed, and pelagic sealing stopped in 1912. Since then the herd has increased from 127,000 in 1912, to about 700,000 in 1924, and the United States Government is now able to kill from 25,000 to 40,000 surplus young males every year, worth from £250,000 to £500,000. This shows how rapidly a once dwindling resource can be restored under proper international agreement." Dr. Evermann says that he considers that in the South Pacific and Antarctic there are remnants of more than a score of fur seal herds, which have long been commercially extinct. They could be restored, in his opinion, to vast commercial importance, as has the Alaska fur seal herd. It would be interesting to know what action in the Antarctic is contemplated by the Governments of New Zealand, which has recently taken over the Ross Dependency on behalf of Great Britain, and Australia, which claims dominant influence in A dele Land. The international agreement terminates at the end of this year.